October 20, 2014

DOE IG Unable to Determine if Former WTP Manager Was Fired as Retaliation

By ExchangeMonitor

The Department of Energy Inspector General’s Office was unable to determine if a former senior manager at the Hanford Waste Treatment Plant was terminated as an act of retaliation due to a lack of access to information from the main contractors involved on the project, according to a report released yesterday. The DOE IG had been tasked with investigating the circumstances surrounding the decision earlier this year by URS, a major WTP subcontractor, to terminate Donna Busche, who had served as a key nuclear safety manager on the project. Busche has charged she was terminated for raising safety concerns—allegations that URS and WTP contractor Bechtel National have repeatedly denied. In its report, the IG said because of “a material scope limitation” it was unable to determine whether Busche was retaliated against or not. “In short, Bechtel and URS told us that they could not provide access to several thousand contractor-generated emails and other documents that we believe were necessary to perform our examination of the Busche termination,” the IG said. “On the advice of outside counsel, both contractors took the position that the documents in question were subject to either attorney-client or attorney work product privilege. Also, URS made a unilateral determination that certain documents were not relevant to our examination,” the IG added.

Busche, who still has a claim pending with the Department of Labor, said yesterday she was “disappointed” in the IG’s report. “I think it really hurts DOE and makes them look bad,” she told WC Monitor. “If there’s anyone on the project who wants to raise a concern, they will never open their mouths.” In a statement yesterday, DOE said it “regrets” that the IG was unable to provide an opinion. However, Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.), who chairs the Senate Subcommittee on Contracting and Financial Oversight, wants more information from the Department by the end of this month on its plans to address what she called a “lack of cooperation” by URS and Bechtel National with the IG’s investigation. In a letter to Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz yesterday, McCaskill wrote, “I request that the Department provide a briefing to the Subcommittee about DOE’s plans to address the contractors’ lack of cooperation with the Inspector General’s request. The briefing should also include the mechanisms that are available to the Department to hold the contractors accountable for their noncompliance, including withholding of fees and recovery of costs incurred by the Office of Inspector General.”

URS said yesterday that it “respects” the IG’s decision not to render an opinion on Busche’s termination. “Ms. Busche’s claim is without merit. URS has a strong safety record and our corporate culture makes safety our highest priority. Each employee is encouraged and empowered to raise concerns about safety, and we are methodical in addressing the concerns they identify,” a company spokesperson said in a statement. For its part, Bechtel National said it was “disappointed” in the language the DOE IG used in its report. “Bechtel went above and beyond in cooperating with the OIG’s investigation—providing requested documents for review and people to interview, in accordance with the protocol agreed to with the IG,” Bechtel spokesman Fred deSousa said in a written response. “Furthermore, we offered to work with the OIG to provide access to documents that are protected under the law, in a way that preserves those protections, but the OIG declined our offer.”

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